I have always had an interest in conspiracy theories since seeing JFK as a kid. They are fascinating and I love reading up on them, watching docs and listening to podcasts about them. The only time I ever bought into one was for a little while after 9/11. I think I watched Loose Change or something and became a truther for a minute. Then I found a website that debunked the conspiracy theories and that was that. Now they are pure entertainment.

my brain was completely rotted out with conspiracies when the internet was relatively new and i was too young to understand any basement dweller could set up an angelfire page. thankfully i grew out of it.

i know grown men with kids who straight faced think hillary and obama are lizard people freemasons or whatever, in a darker timeline i would've wound up like that

Always fascinating to watch where a human mind will go. But no, i try not to draw too much conclusions when i'm not into the details. And i must have some sort of hope people do have some good in them.

I saw zeitgeist about 911. At first I was beginning to question 911 but then after watching and a 2nd time, I just concluded this dude is talking out of his ass like the guy from Ancient Aliens. Pure speculation and distorted facts to fit an agenda.

A friend got divorced recently, and I didn't know the details. But then he started posting on fb about how his ex-wife thought he was having a mental illness, and that that was the cause behind the divorce. Thing is, he started hearing his name in music videos and in Snapchat-videos taken of their kids. She didn't hear it, nobody else either. So he has developed this idea that Snapchat deliberately inserts his name, and messages to him (such as "Die, *name*") in his snaps. He's been posting lots of snaps as "evidence" of this lately. No use telling him that there's nothing there - he just retorts that your hearing isn't good enough. It's scary how quickly and easily he made up this conspiracy theory and how ardently he believes in it - he used to be such a smart guy. There must be tons of conspiracy theories out there that started with a similar mental breakdown.

Not conspiracy theories, but I suppose I did spend some time in my youth internet researching western occult traditions, which is probably worth half points or something.

Theorizing about conspiracies seems like a subtle kind of paranoia. I think if I'm going to inform my mind to look for absurd synchronicities, I'd rather they make me feel more connected to the world than suspicious of it. That's given that all metaphysics is problematic af, and probably the only way we can get value from metaphysical thought is from a purely aesthetic POV.

Yeah, pretty much this. Although if someone officially came out and said “An F-15 from Langley shot down Flight 93” there’s a fairly small group of people who were working the flight lines in the mid-Atlantic region that morning who would nod their heads, since that rumor spread internally fairly quickly that day, and in the days that followed the rest of that week.

To me, the fascinating thing about that story in particular, is how something can be “known” by quite a few people, but it never really gets outside that group, because there’s no direct evidence to support it. The initial rumor spread like wildfire, even before the news was out that wreckage had been found in PA. But once the narrative of the passengers fighting back emerged, that rumor went away pretty quickly.

It’s one of those things where you realize that without evidence, all you have are stories. It makes you appreciate investigative methods, with the focus on documentation and corroborative evidence, rather than insinuation and secondhand tales.

Back when I was 18, I started smoking weed and watched way too many conspiracy theory videos. While I didn't really believed in them, I still felt slightly "uncomfortable", strangely entertained and hooked. It was mostly about 9/11, Chemtrails, Nibiru and other space/science related things. It went for a year and some months, but stopped when I discovered nice "..... Theory Debunked" videos. Their explanations were making much more sense to me and I learned that you often can use real science or just logic, to explain things or even recreate stuff by yourself. Even if it's sometimes much harder to understand some things and needs further education/understanding

I talked to many conspiracy believers during that time, and they often have some particular things in common.
Most of them are super religious (it's all about Jesus, Satan, and Angels), unsatisfied, anxious and super distrustful. Or sometimes just uneducated and in search for easy answers, for complex questions.

I always wondered why such people never get the idea, that such conspiracy theories could be wrong and misleading too. Some people are just using conspiracy theories to make tons of money by selling pseudo scientific books and giving expensive lectures. Isn't that much more suspicious?

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I remember reading all these UFO books when I was a kid, like 4th-6th grade. I have no idea why my school library stocked so many weird conspiracy theory books, haha. I remember some of them were pretty recent, talking about some sort of flying wedge that a bunch of people had supposedly seen over the years in the late 80's early 90's that was thought to be a government project.

I was a 9/11 truther for a very short period of time. Basically was skeptical for a while until I found/heard enough facts to make me realize that it was a dumb theory. There is still a slight feeling that maybe the neocons let it happen, or were at least happy to use it to justify some wars.

I thought the CIA killed Kennedy for a while, but I've mostly moved on from that. If that happened I think there would've been leaks by now.

I just use the "does x conspiracy affect rich and powerful?" If yes then conspiracy is BS. That works for most of them, except the two I posted and believed for a while, because they don't exactly pass my test.

A friend got divorced recently, and I didn't know the details. But then he started posting on fb about how his ex-wife thought he was having a mental illness, and that that was the cause behind the divorce. Thing is, he started hearing his name in music videos and in Snapchat-videos taken of their kids. She didn't hear it, nobody else either. So he has developed this idea that Snapchat deliberately inserts his name, and messages to him (such as "Die, *name*") in his snaps. He's been posting lots of snaps as "evidence" of this lately. No use telling him that there's nothing there - he just retorts that your hearing isn't good enough. It's scary how quickly and easily he made up this conspiracy theory and how ardently he believes in it - he used to be such a smart guy. There must be tons of conspiracy theories out there that started with a similar mental breakdown.

That...actually sounds a little bit like schizophrenia. I'm not a doctor, and I don't think an actual doctor worth his/her salt would diagnose just based on that anecdote, but...that's what it sounds like. Chances of onset typically spike for males in their early 20's; that much I remember from class.